Thuggee - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• The story of Thuggee was popularised by books such as Philip Meadows Taylor's novel Confessions of a Thug, 1839, leading to the word "thug" entering the English language. Ameer Ali, the protagonist of Confessions of a Thug was said to be based on a real Thug called Syeed Amir Ali.
• Italian novelist Emilio Salgari has the protagonist fight the rising Thuggee cult in The Mystery of the Black Jungle (1887/1895).
• John Masters' 1952 novel The Deceivers concerns the fight to suppress Thuggee, with a leading character partly based on William Sleeman. A 1988 film version was produced by Ismail Merchant and starred Pierce Brosnan.
• A non-fiction study of the movement is provided by George Bruce's The Stranglers: The cult of Thuggee and its overthrow in British India (1968).
• Dan Simmons's Song of Kali, 1985, features a Thuggee cult.
• The 19th century American writer Mark Twain discusses the Thuggee fairly extensively in chapters 9 and 10 of "Following the Equator: Volume II", 1897, THE ECCO PRESS, ISBN 0-88001-519-5.
• Christopher Moore's novel, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, describes a Thuggee ritual.
• George Macdonald Fraser's novel Flashman in the Great Game (1975) makes references to the "cult" of Thuggee, while the phrase: "pass the tobacco" is used as a verbal signal for the killing to begin.
• The DC Comics character Ravan is a Thuggee assassin who kills to delay the return of Kali. He is the enemy of Kobra who seeks to bring about her return.
• The two most popular depictions of the cult in film are the 1939 film, Gunga Din, and the 1984 film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The Indiana Jones movie is notable for Amrish Puri's villain, who is shown chanting lines such as "maaro maaro sooar ko, chamdi nocho pee lo khoon" - literally "Kill, Kill the pig, flay his skin, drink his blood". Temple of Doom was temporarily banned in India for an allegedly racist portrayal of Indians. Both films have the heroes fighting secret revivals of the cult to prevent them from resuming their reigns of terror, although Temple of Doom included features that were never part of the Thuggee, such as the removal of the heart during a ritual.
• In the 1956 film Around the World in Eighty Days, starring David Niven, Passepartout (played by Cantinflas) rescues a princess captured by the Thuggee and sentenced to burn to death in the funeral pyre with her deceased husband. (In the original Jules Verne novel, Thuggee are mentioned only briefly, and not directly in connection with this princess.)
• The 1968 Bollywood film Sangharsh, based on a story by Jnanpith Award winner, Mahasweta Devi, presented a fictionalised account of vendetta within a Thuggee cult in the holy Indian town of Varanasi.
• In an episode of Highlander: The Series, "The Wrath of Kali", Duncan MacLeod deals with immortal Kamir (played by Indian actor Kabir Bedi), last of the Thuggee.
• In Suzanne Enoch's historical romance novel A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior, the protagonist is the sole survivor of a Thuggee massacre. He attempts to restore both his reputation and those of the men who died under his command against the self-serving libel of the East India Company.
• In Glen Cook's Black Company series, the Thuggee play a significant role in two books: Shadow Games and Dreams of Steel.